Dear Client: How is Colorado’s Odell Brewing doing halfway through 2020, a year that has been marked by every kind of upheaval? New CEO Eric “Smitty” Smith tells CBD they’re rooting to finish the year flat. That’s on the back of a tremendous off-premise showing. In IRI multi-outlet and convenience, the brewer is up 41% … Continue reading “Odell’s Power Moves: “Flat” Goals, New Wine Cans, and SoCal”

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Greg Owsley, after 15 years at the command post of New Belgium’s branding operations, is taking the theory used to build the No. 3 craft brewery and applying it to other consumer segments. His resulting solo enterprise, The Storied Brand, is not quite a year old…

Maybe it’s because Super Bowl is a domestics-oriented holiday, built for day-long drinking. Maybe it’s because craft is strong in price but not voluminous enough to be a loss leader in most retail outlets. Either way, craft specials at supers got more play over Labor Day…

We know that The Super Bowl is a top holiday for beer, but what about craft? With all the display activity we’ve gained at key holidays, and on-premise opportunities to differentiate during the unofficial holiday of Bud Light, we expect good numbers. Those will come out in a few weeks…

A majority of American beer drinkers now drinks craft beer at least occasionally. That’s not a super-new phenomenon: The majority threshold was actually crossed in 2010. This per internal research done by the Boston Beer team…

It was bound to happen: The newest full-time addition to the Shock Top family is Shock Top Wheat IPA, a “unique hybrid style that brings the refreshment and smoothness of a wheat beer and marries it with the crisp, hoppy bitterness of an India Pale Ale,” says a statement from A-B released today…

If you throw out industry definitions, NAB is the fifth largest craft supplier in the U.S., NAB’s VP sales James Pendegraft said at yesterday’s yearly meeting. As an organization, however, they’re only 1.4 share…

The short version: Not much. Well, that’s not completely true. But when we asked the authoritative authors of a new book on sustained-growth brands what lessons they could offer our segment, there wasn’t much. Maybe craft really is in a branding league of its own…

It’s official. Sierra Nevada has announced that it has chosen a site for an East Coast brewery near Mills River, North Carolina. The brewery will start at a capacity of 300k barels. Here is the release…

It surprised your editor to learn that the No. 1 request coming through Dogfish’s “info” e-mail, Milton brewery tour, and Rehoboth pub was for a gluten-free beer. Sam Calagione says the comments reflected a want for something outside the realm of straightforward lager. They knew Dogfish could do gluten-free differently…

We first introduced you to Tenth and Blake’s Project Apollo and The Brewprint last August. And almost a half-year later, those distributor and retailer-facing initiatives are crystallizing, with more details to be announced at MillerCoors’ national distributor conference in March…

Die-hard, brand-specific craft loyalty exists in Southwest Virginia, a market that probably has roughly half the national craft share. People go crazy for Dogfish Head 60 Minute, according to P.A. Short Distributing’s Craft Brand Manager Aden Short. It’s not his brand, but it’s particularly noteworthy in its divergence from the national norm…

We promised yesterday a roundup of craft’s struggle in certain top food markets across the U.S. As you know, being down is usually a bigger-guy problem. But where, and who? (Data for U.S. Food markets YTD to Dec. 25.)…